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It has come to the attention of both mods that there is an over abundance of rude posts in many threads. Rudeness in posts will absolutely not be tolerated, and hence forth will result in infractions.
Sarcasm will be tolerated so long as it does not cross the line into overt rudeness. The moderators appreciate a sense of humor, and for more subtle sarcastic posts, or for sarcasm in general, perhaps the insertion of the emoticon would prove helpful and alert those reading the post of it's intent.
Please refer to the Terms of Service if necessary regarding the above, and direct message either moderators should you have any further questions.
Religion Posting Guidelines - Updated August 15, 2014
Specific posting instruction for all the Religion & Spirituality forums.
Obviously, the Terms of Service apply in all the forums on City-Data. In addition, some specific posting rules exist that only apply to a single specific forum. We have those here. There is Administrator's rule against proselytizing in the Atheism & Spirituality forum, and the relaxation of the English-only rule in the Judaism and Islam forums, and the rules dealing with definitions of Christians in the Christianity forum.
This section of City-Data is for discussions about Religion and Spirituality, which makes it a little different from other forums. Everyone is free to post in any forum. For example, the Christianity forum is for discussions about Christianity, but there is no requirement that a person be a Christian in order to post there.
Be careful in your postings and take into consideration that these forums cover topics that are emotional for most of the members who post here. Many people feel very protective of their religious beliefs, so an extra helping of respect is in order to avoid arguments. That respect needs to go both ways. Members need to recognize that many people have beliefs that differ from their own (no matter how smart or right they are). Plagiarizing from the sticky in another forum, please don't poke the bears, and bears, please don't poke the tourists.
Some topics are not appropriate for these forums, particularly when those topics cross that invisible, and sometimes difficult to define, line between religion and politics. Somebody has to figure it out, and the Moderators got the job. We all hate to delete posts and lock threads, so we all promise to be as lenient as our conscious allows.
When starting a new thread, please do not post only a link or a video. Other members may not know what your intent was if that is all there is. Also, subsequent posts may be off topic if they have no idea what topic you wanted to set forth with your link/video. Add a line or two to let the readers know your thoughts.
Personal attacks and trolling are strictly against the TOS. Please report instead of answering. Infractions WILL be given to BOTH the attacker and the posters that answers with an attack of their own. Once you reply to trolling posts you then often become a troll also. Answering and antagonizing is every bit as bad what the troll did. Infractions may ensue if you partake in this. Accusing another person of being a troll is defined here as a personal attack and is worthy of an infraction.
Changing others' posts that you have quoted, is not permitted. Do not change others' posts ... EVER. It is trolling and violators will be infracted. If you see it being done please report. Don't reply.
Do NOT post in RED. RED is reserved across City-Data for Moderator actions. This is done so everyone can distinguish between posts a Moderator makes as a member and posts a Moderator makes in the role of Moderator. Although some customarily use RED to indicate words from the Bible attributed to Jesus, please use another color when posting.
As Moderators, we are not here to decide what's true and what is not. If City-Data wanted to do that, they would hire a bunch of experts, from lawyers to doctors to engineers to theologians, instead of a random group of volunteer moderators. Please, remember that we are volunteers and are not online 24/7.
Offenses that will get the Moderators to take action:
1. Overtly rude on overly sarcastic posts. From this date forward, ongoing rude or sarcastic posts will be infracted.
2. Accusing another member of offenses worthy of infractions (such as trolling).
3. Accusing another member of being inadequately religious. (e.g. A real Christian doesn't believe that.)
4. Restarting a thread recently closed.
5. Reposting a previously Moderated comment.
6. Abuse of the Report Button.
7. Bashing anyone's religion (or lack of same). This includes Universalists, Mormons, Muslims, Baptists, Lutherans, Amish (although I don't think we have any posting).
8. Replying to a post you report. This makes extra work for the Moderators (volunteers) and makes them grumpy. You don't want grumpy Moderators.
Thanks for reading. Play well with each other.
If someone has been especially helpful to you on this (or any) forum , why not give them a "rep?" Just click the "Scales" icon in the upper right-hand corner.
Thanks , everyone. With all of us pulling together, we can have a wonderful forum . To use June's term, take gentle care. To relate that to the forum, help us all to make this a kind and gentle forum.
If you have questions about the forums, please send a Direct Message to one of the Moderators.
As of January 2, 2017,Science threads are not to be started in any of the Religion & Spirituality forums.
Our reasoning is based on the fact that we have had two recent threads dealing with Science in Religion and Scientific Proof of God. Both threads developed into discussions that had virtually nothing to do with Religion or Spirituality (the reason we have these forums).
Another reason is that the local forum rules for the Science & Technology forum prohibits posting about Religion, so it is deemed inappropriate for the Religion forums to host Science threads. That rule is quoted here:
This is the Science forum, not Religion forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yac
To clarify as there seems to be some confusion about this lately:
This is the Science forum. We have a separate Religion forum where you can post about Religion, but please don't do it here. There is a clear line between the two, and if you cross it your thread/post might be moved/deleted and you might get an infraction for it.
Yac.
Now, here's the kicker. If people post things that are scientifically incorrect, this rule is not to be construed to prohibit people from responding. For example, if a discussion about creation results in a comment claiming the evolution scientists claim that evolution proves life originated from goop, this rule is not to prohibit people with knowledge of science from posting corrections. This is NOT permission to take a thread off in a science direction. Answer with a post or two. If the thread isn't back on topic, please report rather than breaking the spirit of this rule.
Don't turn this into an excuse to report occasional single comments that are pertinent to discussions. This is to keep our forums focused on Religion and Spirituality by avoiding threads primarily focused on Science topics. Remember that Science topics are welcome in the Science and Technology forum.
Thank you for your cooperation.
The Religion & Spirituality Moderators june 7th
Miss Blue
Woodrow LI
mensaguy
One thing that needs to be written down is that Abortion is a topic for the Politics and Other Controversies forum and is considered off topic anywhere in the Religion and Spirituality forums. This has been enforced since the day I was asked to become a moderator for this forum. I did not take on this role to moderate political discussions. If you want to discuss this topic, please locate one of the many, many threads in the Politics and Other Controversies forum.
We are moderating these forums on a zero tolerance policy against any profanity of any kind. It's pretty simple. City-Data operates a language filter. If a word you wanted to use if filtered out, don't try to circumvent the filter. We don't allow any cussing, even if it is spelled c*ssing or Cu$$ing or C*ssyng. Just don't do it.
Furthermore, this is so offensive to so many members that people breaking this rule can expect to receive a post limiting infraction even for the first offense.
If the words you want to say are unacceptable for use in a church service, find some other words to use to say what you are trying to say.
We would greatly appreciate it if you would report what you believe are duplicate accounts or accounts created by previously banned members. When you do so please include the name(s) of who you think it is and why you suspect they are who they are.
Members that are not moderators spend much more time reading the forum. We do not read every post and mostly depend on YOU to help us out with reports. Also, sometimes you might pick up clues about a poster in another City-Data forum that we don't frequent.
Posts about God being the Universe are hereby declared off topic. We don't really care what you believe, but this forum is about Religion and Spirituality. Making post after post declaring that the Universe is God offers nothing for discussion about Religion or Spirituality. All you are doing is arguing the validity of an obscure dictionary definition. Stop it. If such a post appears, report it. DO NOT reply to it or you can expect an infraction for derailing a thread, pulling it away from discussions relevant to Religion or Spirituality.
This rule has been Superseded by the updated rule in Post No. 15.
Posts about God being the Universe are hereby declared off topic. We don't really care what you believe, but this forum is about Religion and Spirituality. Making post after post declaring that the Universe is God offers nothing for discussion about Religion or Spirituality. All you are doing is arguing the validity of an obscure dictionary definition. Stop it. If such a post appears, report it. DO NOT reply to it or you can expect an infraction for derailing a thread, pulling it away from discussions relevant to Religion or Spirituality.
It seems that some explanation is in order. So far, we have two members that have complained that this rule is focused directly on their point of view. It isn't. There have been three members posting things like this in recent years. However, there are many members responsible for this rule.
If somebody interrupts a discussion to say "but EVERYTHING is God!" you could reply "Believe what you want, but we're talking about sentient omnipotent beings here." However, some posters don't do that. They reply with post after post after post dragging threads off track. Cleaning up one thread caused 75 posts to be deleted and cleaning up another took over 3 hours and caused 125 of your posts to go away (posts people put time, effort, and thinking into). All of that work accomplished exactly nothing.
Here are a couple of relevant comments on the subject:
1. There is nothing to discuss. You believe God is the Universe. You have no holy book. There are no rituals. No organization exists. Tenets of the faith are nowhere to be found. Therefore, you have nothing to say about it that is relevant to Religion or Spirituality. After all, that is what these forums exist to discuss.
2. We don't care what you believe. It's not what you post, it's how you post about it. From the look of it, you don't have much to say except arguing with everybody else and we don't want to publish that kind of bickering. Doesn't matter if it's religion, cars or Internet. If you went around telling everybody nothing except that Volvo is better than Subaru, we wouldn't be interested, either, unless you cared to share your experience of driving and wanted to hear about others.
That's why this rule was put in place. Everyone is jointly responsible for this being needed.
This rule has been Superseded by the updated rule in Post No. 15.
A personal attack is a derogatory statement or statements directed at a specific poster. Derogatory statements include, but are not limited to, the following:
*****Negative remarks about a person's intelligence, e.g. IQ level, reading comprehension ability; use of the words retard, stupid, dumb and similar; asking their grade in school
*****Negative remarks about a person's physical or psychiatric health, e.g. accusing a member of senility; needing/forgetting psychiatric medications; making psychiatric diagnosis such as paranoid, bi-polar and the like; suggesting a member needs psychiatric help
*****Negative remarks impugning a member's character or morals
*****Threats of physical violence, or advocating of same, to a member, member's family or their property
The Senior Mod has phrased this more succinctly: "Attack the post, not the poster"
Moderation on CD is not an exact science, and mods have to rely on their judgment in setting limits. What this comes down to, for purposes of discussions on R&S, is that posters will be considered launching a personal attack if they term their disagreements with another poster's point of view by phrasing it as "you are/are a <>" rather than addressing the post. Therefore, as an example, if you feel a point of view is bigoted, the proper way to respond is not "You are a bigot" but rather "This is a bigoted statement." Not "You are homophobic" but "This sounds homophobic".
While we are aware that this distinction seems pedantic and more in line with setting standards for respectful discussion among schoolchildren, the conversations that devolve into namecalling make it apparent that we all need a refresher course in that regard, as well as the setting of limits.
All-encompassing remarks about a group, such as "Fundamentalists are bigoted" or "Liberal Christians have corrupted the scriptures" are NOT personal attacks. Members who disagree with those statements may challenge them in responsive posts, as long as the established rules against racism, claiming someone else is not the religion they identify with, proselytizing, etc., are upheld.
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would prove helpful and alert those reading the post of it's intent.
Religion Posting Guidelines - Updated August 15, 2014
Science topics belong in the Science Forum
